The false hero is a stock character in fairy tales, and sometimes also in ballads. The character appears near the beginning of a story in order to claim to be the hero or heroine and is, therefore, usually of the same sex as the hero or heroine. The false hero presents some claim to the position. By testing, it is revealed that the claims are false, and the hero's true. The false hero is usually punished, and the true hero put in his place.
Vladimir Propp identified it as one of the eight roles he found in an analysis of Russian folktales, but the figure is widely found in many nations' tales.
Read more about False Hero: Traits
Famous quotes containing the words false and/or hero:
“He showed me that the lines of a good helve
Were native to the grain before the knife
Expressed them, and its curves were no false curves
Put on it from without.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“... what a strange time it was! Who knew his neighbor? Who was a traitor and who a patriot? The hero of to-day was the suspected of to-morrow.... There were traitors in the most secret council-chambers. Generals, senators, and secretaries looked at each other with suspicious eyes.... It is a great wonder that the city of Washington was not betrayed, burned, destroyed a half-dozen times.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)